


Saving Christmas

by Glisseo



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, Set in 2014 (post-Quidditch World Cup), Sexy Times
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:15:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21903592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glisseo/pseuds/Glisseo
Summary: When disaster strikes the Burrow, Ginny takes it upon herself to save Christmas for the rest of the family, but between her children, demanding job, and far too many Weasleys to fit into one house, it proves more difficult than she could ever have imagined.Written for the 2019 Incognito Elf fic exchange on Discord
Relationships: Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 7
Kudos: 108





	Saving Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jenorama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenorama/gifts).



London was shrouded in dusk, a thick haze hanging low over the city, dimming even the garish orange streetlights: just like the office workers sneaking out before five, it seemed that the feeble winter light was in a hurry to be done for the day, to pack up and go home and have a stiff drink or two. A brisk, biting wind was blowing litter along the pavements and frozen pedestrians into the nearest pubs and bars, keener to brave the exorbitant prices rather than the weather.   
  
By contrast, the windows in the Portkey terminal displayed a bright blue sky with a few scant clouds drifting serenely by. Pat, who’d been on since six, wished they would at least make it match up to the time of day. It always threw him off, especially in the winter months when he finally got off shift and walked out into pitch blackness.   
  
With a faint click and a whirr, the schedule board rearranged itself to show the latest information. Pat kept one eye on his watch. He wasn’t expecting any delays, they hadn’t really had many since Weasley had taken over the Magical Transportation department. Say what you like about the bloke (and those in his department said plenty, if the tales from down the Niffler and Newt were anything to go by), but he’d got things running a damn sight more smoothly.   
  
_Tick._ Thirty-two. Sixty seconds. Pat touched his wand to his throat as the air in front of his station rippled, distorting, as if something was moving through it -   
  
A rusty old soup can materialised, followed by the lone woman holding it, a red-haired witch who straightened up and readjusted the bag on her shoulder.   
  
“Four-thirty-three from Heidelberg,” Pat announced to the near empty terminal.   
  
\---   
  
Ginny Disapparated from the designated area in the building, which saved some time, but meant she was unprepared for the bitter gale that smacked her in the face as soon as she reappeared in the lane outside the Potters’ house. It had not been nearly so cold in Germany, and she had been outside for a good portion of the week, reporting on the Meisterliga for the _Prophet_. She was bone-weary and desperate for a cup of tea, or possibly something stronger masquerading as a cup of tea.   
  
The front door creaked loudly as she pushed it open, drawing out a curious medley of cats but no humans; the house was oddly still and quiet. Ginny went into the kitchen and found her daughter curled up in the threadbare old armchair that lived by the fire, nose in a book and yet another cat sprawled across her stomach.

"Mummy!" Lily cried: the cat scattered in protest at being disturbed. "You're back! Hug!"

Ginny hugged her as best she could. "Where are Dad and the boys?" 

"Erm, somewhere," said Lily helpfully, her voice muffled in Ginny's robes. 

"Are they here?"

"I think so."

"Are they alive?"

Lily giggled. "Yes!" 

"Are you _sure?"_

"Yes!!"

"Shall we go and find them, then?" Ginny suggested, and headed up the stairs, Lily clinging to her waist like a limpet. The study door was ajar, with a light on, so she tried there first. Harry had his head on his arms, snoring faintly, amidst a sea of paperwork. He gave a loud grunt when Ginny poked him, then bolted upright, scrabbling for his wand.

It was remarkably heartwarming, even after all their years together, to see his face light up as he realised what had woken him. "Hello, you," he said, rising to his feet and pulling her into a hug. She breathed him in, cheek pressed against the slightly scratchy wool of his jumper, then pulled back and smiled at him.

"Missed you," he said. 

"Missed you too."

Lily had slipped between them and hopped into Harry's chair. "I missed you too, Mummy," she piped up, glancing up from her perusal of confidential Auror files.   
  
“I liked your comment about Dellinger,” said Harry.   
  
“Ha, yeah. I’m not sure Ed will have done, but -” she yawned widely - “we’ll see …”   
  
“You hungry?” Harry asked, just as her stomach gave a loud rumble. They both laughed.   
  
“God, yes - I swear the hotel only served sauerkraut, even for breakfast.”   
  
“What’s sauerkraut?” Lily wanted to know.   
  
“It’s what you’ll be having for pudding if you keep looking at those, madam,” said Harry, though he didn’t sound particularly stern. “I don’t need details of ongoing investigations being leaked in the playground …”   
  
“I can’t read any of it!”   
  
“I know that’s not true, you read _The Hippogriff Who Came to Tea_ perfectly to me last night …”   
  
“No, I can’t read your handwriting,” said Lily bluntly. “It’s a mess, Daddy.”   
  
“Oh, you mean like your room was when I left?” Ginny said pointedly. “And you said you’d tidy it before I got back?”   
  
“Yeeees,” said Lily, suddenly vague. “Can I go and play before dinner?” she added, and escaped before either of them could answer.   
  
Ginny exchanged an exasperated look with Harry.   
  
“I’ll go and put something on if you want to shower and change,” he suggested.   
  
“You saying I smell?”   
  
“Of course not, I’d never - completely unrelated, how long have you been wearing those clothes?”   
  
She swatted him, he laughed, and they parted ways, Ginny along to the master bedroom, Harry downstairs to start dinner. She did want to shower - there was something about overseas Portkeys that made her feel slightly stale. How did the Muggles cope, travelling in their airy planes for hours at a time, she wondered. She had a quick shower and was rootling around for comfortable clothes when in the mirror reflection she saw a dark head appear around the door.   
  
“Mum! IT IS MUM,” James roared over his shoulder.   
  
“WHAAAAT?” came the faint response from the floor above.   
  
“IT - IS - MUM!”   
  
“Don’t worry, I didn’t need my hearing,” said Ginny drily. “All right, Jimothy?”   
  
“Yeah …” James wandered in and flung himself, starfished, on the bed. “Who won?”   
  
“ _Have some decency, woman!”_ screeched the mirror, and Ginny quickly hoiked her towel back into place, then grabbed her dressing gown and pulled it on.   
  
“Didn’t you listen to it?” she asked James.   
  
“Yeah, and I read what you wrote … oh, it was - whatstheirface -”   
  
“Yes,” said Ginny. “They nearly lost, though - whaddyamacallem put up a good fight.”   
  
Even prone, she could tell James was rolling his eyes - he gave a half-hearted “ _Mu-_ um,” as Al peeked around the door. His little face lit up just like Harry’s had, and he immediately flung his arms around Ginny’s waist.   
  
“Aah, hello, sweetheart,” said Ginny fondly, stroking his soft dark hair. “I always did say, my favourite son is the one who hugs me - he’s the one that’ll get all the Christmas presents -”   
  
“What?” James sat up. “You never said that, that’s not fair!”   
  
“I shouldn’t have to say it, you should hug me anyway, out of duty and love.”   
  
Al, still snuggled into her, craned his neck to look at her. “Are you going to be here for Christmas?”   
  
“Of course I am!”   
  
“You’ve been away a lot,” said Al.   
  
It was not accusing at all, but to Ginny, the simple statement - coupled with her son’s wide, sad eyes - Ron had once said he looked like an abandoned puppy, which Ginny had taken as a personal affront - felt like a sucker punch to the gut.   
  
“I’m here,” she said firmly, kissing the top of his head. “And I’m not going anywhere.” 

\---  
  
Even if she had been joking about the sauerkraut (and she wasn’t), Harry’s cooking was the best thing she could have come home to. She tugged on the waistband of her trousers and sank back in her chair as Harry sent the dinner plates to the sink and brought out a lemon cheesecake for pudding. The very small Christmas tree in the kitchen - the big one’s baby, Lily had said - twinkled merrily and the fire blazed as the gusts outside rattled the windows in their panes and rain fell hard against the glass. Ginny felt very warm and comfortable, listening contentedly to her family’s conversation around her, their voices washing over her like a hot bath.   
  
“Do you know about the dangerous threat to our Earth called global warming?” Al asked, looking very grave. “The world is getting too hot because of greenhouse gases -”   
  
“What are greenhouse gases?”   
  
“When you fart in a greenhouse,” said James.   
  
Lily wrinkled her nose.   
  
“- and it’s melting all the ice in the Arctic and that means the polar bears have nowhere to live!”   
  
“That’s very sad, Al,” said Ginny, yawning, “but I’m sure there are people trying to look after them.”   
  
“I bet Hagrid would like a polar bear,” James commented.   
  
“Not dangerous enough,” said Harry. “But don’t give him ideas, anyway. Lil, you haven’t had your bath yet.”   
  
“Mummy said I didn’t have to ‘cos she’s just got back.”   
  
“Right here, Lil,” said Ginny, amused. But she was too tired to be strict, and Harry took their daughter off to bed in the slightly grubby state she always ended up in by the end of the day. Ginny yawned her way through a chapter of the boys’ story - Al liked to listen to whatever she was reading to James, anyway - and finally collapsed, exhausted, into bed beside her husband.   
  
“Don’t wake me up tomorrow,” she mumbled in his direction, face down in her pillow.   
  
“What, at all?”   
  
“... no. Give it a day. Maybe two.”   
  
There was a brief silence, broken only by Harry humming thoughtfully. “But,” he said, his voice teasing, “I was going to wake you up in a special way, since you’ve been away all week.”   
  
Ginny rolled onto her back and eyed him speculatively.   
  
“What’s that, then? Marmalade on my toast instead of just butter?”   
  
“Mm,” said Harry. Ginny felt a warm hand slip inside her pyjama bottoms, stroking her thigh, and then moving upwards.   
  
“Oh, I see,” she remarked idly. “ _That_ way.”   
  
The hand dipped under the waistband of her knickers. “Mmm-hmm.”   
  
“Well. I suppose I could be persuaded to wake up, maybe.” Despite her tiredness, a familiar tingle was creeping through her body; she gave up any pretence of nonchalance and rearranged herself so she was in a more comfortable position, which just happened to be straddling Harry’s waist.   
  
“I bloody love marmalade,” he mumbled into her neck, before she kissed him deeply, rolling her hips against his, revelling in his reaction as he pushed back against her, hands sliding up underneath her top and cupping her breasts -   
  
“Mummy?”   
  
Harry swore, Ginny rolled off him, and they both looked at Lily, standing in the doorway with her teddy Ramsbottom dangling limply from her hand.   
  
“What were you doing to Daddy?”   
  
Harry muttered something that might have been _giving him a heart attack_. "Daddy was scared by the storm," said Ginny blithely. "I was just giving him a special cuddle." 

Lily clambered onto the bed and wriggled between them like a little eel, albeit with pointy elbows. She looked astonished. "Scared of the storm!" she repeated in disbelief. "I didn't think you was scared of _anything!_ " 

"Lots of things," said Harry, extracting a pillow and placing it carefully on his lap. “Little girls in my bed when they should be sleeping in their own, for one.”  
  
“I heard a big crash,” Lily reported. “And Ramsbottom said he would like to sleep in here. Please.”   
  
“Ramsbottom’s got an awful cheek,” said Ginny. “I vote we kick him out.”   
  
Lily clutched at him, alarmed. “No! Mummy!”

“Well, all right, but he’d better get his act together … do you think he can sleep without kicking me in the shins? Yes? No? Wonderful … night then, Ramsbottom, you cheeky git …”  
  
She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw Harry glowering at poor Ramsbottom before she extinguished the lamps.

The atmosphere was very calm and still when Ginny woke, pale light streaming through the curtains, beyond which birds were twittering. Harry was still fast asleep, chest slowly rising and falling, and Lily was nestled into him like a little kitten with its mother. Ginny smiled, wishing she had a camera, and crept out of bed, snagging her dressing gown and slippers on her way out of the bedroom.   
  
She liked being the first one up after being away: the house’s gentle melody welcomed her back, beginning with the faint creak of the stairs and the humming of the old immersion, rising to a crescendo with the high-pitched squeal of the kettle coming to boil. She nibbled at a slice of toast as she pottered around the kitchen, tidying up here and there, pausing to gaze out of the large picture window that looked out onto the long back garden. The peace of the morning belied the storm that had raged in the night, but it couldn’t hide the tree that had been felled, lying forlornly on its side. That must have been the crash that Lily heard, Ginny thought.   
  
One of the cats wound around her ankles, purring loudly: lost in thought, it took a minute or two for her to register the sound of knocking at the door. She was not expecting anyone, and certainly wasn’t expecting to find her parents on the doorstep, both pale-faced and puffy-eyed; they looked as if they had not slept at all.   
  
“What’s happened?” she asked, greetings fading on her lips.   
  
“Let’s go and sit down,” said Dad.   
  
In the kitchen she made three strong cups of tea and handed them out before sinking into a seat herself.   
  
“We had a bit of a shock,” Dad began gently. “The storm last night, well -”   
  
Mum burst into tears.   
  
“It’s destroyed our home! Ruined! The Burrow, gone!”   
  
Ginny’s heart plummeted into her stomach. “What do you mean, gone?” she demanded, mouth dry.   
  
“It isn’t gone, Molly,” Dad corrected. He put a hand over Mum’s. “It’s just taken a bit of a battering, that’s all.”   
  
“Battering? What -”   
  
Dad met her eyes, and his expression was serious underneath the weariness. “There’s structural damage to the roof and upper floors. Part of it has caved in …”   
  
“Can’t it be fixed?”   
  
“Oh, it can, but it’s not a two-second job, I’m afraid - I’m not an expert by any means, it was my cousin Ned that did the extensions in the first place and he’s not been right since the incident with Aunty Mabel’s Kneazle -”   
  
There were footsteps on the stairs and Harry appeared in the doorway, barefoot and heavily dishevelled. “Molly, Arthur,” he said, immediately looking concerned. “Is everyone -?”   
  
“Everyone’s fine,” Dad said reassuringly. “We’ve just got a bit of a - situation -”   
  
“The Burrow was damaged in the storm,” Ginny explained.   
  
Harry immediately wanted to know if it could be repaired, who could do it, and all sorts of other practical questions. Dad answered him patiently, but Ginny could see the strain on his face. And then Harry said, “But you can’t stay there while it’s like that, it can’t be safe!”   
  
“Oh, we can stay at Muriel’s,” said Mum, looking rather pained.   
  
“No way,” said Ginny at once. “Not at Christmas, that’s just depressing.”   
  
“Ginny,” Mum said reprovingly. “She’s very old …”   
  
“Yeah, because at this point she’s just staying alive out of spite. No, Mum - you can stay here.”   
  
She did not need to look at Harry to check he was on board, because she knew he would be, and would have insisted on it if she hadn’t.   
  
“That’s very kind, dear, but we couldn’t impose …”   
  
“Don’t be silly, we’d love to have you,” said Harry. “We can put the boys in together, it’s not a problem.”   
  
Mum looked dangerously close to tears again, so Dad squeezed her hand and said, “We’d appreciate that very much, you two, if you’re certain it won’t be any trouble.”   
  
“That’s settled, then,” said Harry, with his Head Auror face on, very much at odds with his drooping pyjama bottoms and holey t-shirt. “Do you need to get anything first? I’ll go over and fetch whatever you need -”   
  
“Oh - yes, a few things, I would think … Arthur, you go with him,” Mum urged. “And do be careful, now -”   
  
“I’ll come too,” said Ginny, getting to her feet; the scraping of the chair against the kitchen tiles drowned out her mother’s protests. “Mum, you’ll be all right with the kids, won’t you? They’re not up yet, so that’s the best time to have them.”   
  
“We usually check if we haven’t heard anything for a few hours,” said Harry. “Normally that means they’ve set something on fire.”   
  
He and Ginny went up to quickly wash and dress. Harry caught her arm as she hurriedly pulled a brush through her hair. “All right?” he said quietly.   
  
“Mm. I just hope it’s fixable.” She blinked away the image of her childhood home as a pile of rubble on the ground. Back downstairs, she and Harry pulled on cloaks and boots and went out with Dad to the Apparition point at the end of the lane.   
  
She let out a gasp when they reappeared on the dusty path that led to the house: she couldn’t help it. The sun had not fully risen yet, the horizon misty, and so the Burrow was cast half in shadow, which only served to make the changes in its silhouette more dramatic. It looked like much of the roof had collapsed, and the topmost storeys, already crooked, were teetering dangerously. As they looked on, there was a loud creak and more of the outer walls gave way, stones crashing to the ground in a shower of plaster.   
  
“Do the others know yet?” Harry asked Dad, sounding slightly strangled.   
  
“I sent a message round, but I said it wasn’t urgent - I hope you don’t mind that we came to you, but I wanted to make sure ... just to rule it out ...”   
  
“Dark magic,” Harry surmised. Ginny looked between the two of them, alarmed.   
  
“You don’t think it was -?”   
  
“I doubt it,” said Harry. “It’s very out of the blue and random if it is, and the storm would be very coincidental. But it’s always worth checking, I’m glad you came to us first, Arthur.”   
  
When they reached the house, though, they found that they had been beaten there: Bill was inspecting the exterior, grim-faced, and there were sounds of movement from inside.   
  
“I didn’t think you’d have contacted anyone yet, so I called in a favour - brother of a colleague is a builder,” he told Dad, jerking a thumb inside. “I asked him to see how long it’d take to fix …”   
  
“Can you feel anything off?” Harry asked him abruptly. He meant curses, Ginny knew: Bill would be adept at detecting the presence of any.   
  
“Not out here,” Bill replied. “Do you expect there to be?”   
  
“No, not really, I’m just making sure - I’ll go in and have a look.” Harry drew his wand; Ginny did the same, and felt a flicker of irritation as Dad and Bill exchanged looks.   
  
“I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself,” she snapped. “There’s no more risk to me than anyone else -”   
  
She could not resist glancing at Harry, who shrugged.   
  
“Up to you,” he said. He’d come on a long way from actively keeping her out of danger - not that she often faced any these days. Letting her choose was as close as he’d get to accepting that she was never going to shy away from it.   
  
“Right then,” she said shortly, gripping her wand tightly, and she followed him into the house.   
  
Perhaps it seemed worse to her because it was her home, but she had to swallow a sharp cry of shock at the scene; the wooden beams criss-crossing the ceiling were splintered and sagging, chunks of plaster littering the floor, everything covered in a fine white dust. She heard something crunch beneath her boot: the glass of a photograph, it transpired, when she bent down to examine it. It was the picture of the whole family in Egypt, all of them alive and well and together.   
  
_“Reparo_ ,” she murmured, touching her wand to the glass, and tucked the repaired frame inside her robes.   
  
Harry had been running his hands over the walls with a look of extreme concentration, casting the occasional spell, but he stuck his wand in his back pocket as a short wizard in grey robes came into the room, carrying a clipboard that reminded her unpleasantly of Dolores Umbridge.   
  
“What’s the verdict?” asked Bill, who had joined them without Ginny noticing. The little man sucked in air through his teeth and looked grave.   
  
“It’s not good, mate, I’m not going to lie to you. Serious structural damage. Surprised some of this held for as long as it did, to be honest -”   
  
“How long will it take to fix?” Ginny interrupted.   
  
“I reckon you’re looking at about six weeks of work. Could be more. Big job, you know.”   
  
Harry cleared his throat behind her and stepped forwards, directly in front of the builder. “I don’t think we’ve met,” he said politely, extending his hand. “This is my in-laws’ home ...”   
  
“Look, mate,” said the man, “I’ve heard it all before, all right, I don’t care if it’s the bloomin’ Minister for Magic’s home, my hands are tied -”   
  
A muscle in Harry’s jaw twitched. Ginny quickly put her hand on his arm. “I’m sure it can’t be done any quicker just because you’re willing to pay him more gold, _Harry_ darling,” she admonished him. 

Harry sighed, looking chagrined, and ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back off his forehead. The man blinked. Ginny watched, entertained; she always enjoyed watching unsuspecting people put two and two together. _What did she call him? Harry?_   
  
“We-elll … it could maybe be done in four,” said the man, slowly, eyes fixed on Harry’s scar. “If I brought in more people, you know … and if you were willing to pay, of course, extra hours, can’t be doing that for free …”   
  
“What a git,” Harry muttered when he’d gone, having refused to budge any further on the timeline. “If it could be done in four weeks for me, it could be done in four for anyone.”   
  
“I’m proud of you,” said Ginny, “using your fame like that … I know how it hurts you …”   
  
“I feel dirty,” Harry agreed, at the precise moment Ron arrived.   
  
“None of that, now,” he said warningly, but he was swiftly distracted by the battered interior of the house; his expression was as gutted as Ginny felt, gaze sweeping over the place. He turned abruptly to Harry. “It was the storm? It wasn’t anything dodgy?”   
  
“No sign of anything,” said Harry.   
  
Ron shook his head grimly.   
  
“It’s a right mess.”   
  
Ginny had seen enough: there was nothing to be gained from staring miserably at the bruised shell of the Burrow. She kissed Harry and left him and the others to it - if they felt useful poking around and muttering, let them.   
  
Mum, unsurprisingly, had taken over the kitchen: the broom was busily sweeping across the floor, the surfaces were gleaming, and Lily was perched at the table, carefully icing a tray of gingerbread people.   
  
“Mummy, look!” she cried, spotting Ginny. “I’m making all of us!”   
  
“All? How much did you make?” Ginny teased, leaning over her daughter’s shoulders to look. “Oh yes, I see, there’s Daddy - and that must be Al and James … is that me?”   
  
“That’s Uncle George!”   
  
“Well, you’ve made him too beautiful, then.” Ginny dropped a kiss on the top of Lily’s head and went to the kettle. “Tea, Mum?”   
  
“Hmm? Oh, yes please, dear …” Mum sent the broom back in the utility room and looked at Ginny, her face creased with worry. “Was everything all right?”   
  
Ginny flicked her wand at the tea caddy, directing two tea bags into a pair of clean mugs. “Apart from the state of the place, yeah,” she said bluntly. “Bill had got a builder round to give an estimate of the time to fix it up … he said four weeks minimum, and he doesn’t work over Christmas. And that was with Harry asking.”   
  
Mum looked even more fraught. “It couldn’t have come at a worse time,” she said despairingly, wringing her hands. “What in Merlin’s name shall we do about Christmas?”   
  
“What do you mean?”   
  
“Well, we can’t have it at the Burrow now, can we, especially not with all the little ones - and Charlie was coming, but now we’ll have to cancel the whole thing!”   
  
Lily looked up, concerned, as her grandmother’s voice rose hysterically. Keen not to have both of them breaking down in the kitchen, Ginny hurriedly plonked a steaming mug in front of Mum and squeezed her arm comfortingly. Lily hesitated, then picked up the gingerbread Molly and took it round to her. Mum’s eyes filled up with tears again.   
  
“That’s very sweet, sunshine,” said Ginny quickly, before Lily misinterpreted this reaction. “Nana’s all right, aren’t you, Mum? It’s going to be OK, really, no one’s been hurt …”   
  
“No,” Mum sniffed, shakily producing a handkerchief and dabbing her eyes. “No … being silly … it’s just so lovely to have all of you together at Christmas …”   
  
“What’s happening to Christmas?” said Lily in great alarm.   
  
“Nothing’s happening to it! Mum,” Ginny said, unable to keep the exasperation from creeping into her voice, “it doesn’t have to be at the Burrow to be Christmas, does it? We can just have it here, for Merlin’s sake. There can’t be much to do.” 

“Well, there’s food,” Mum began as Lily, looking bored now, slipped out of the room. “I usually go to the market in Upper Flagley. Bedding and towels for everyone staying, and sorting where they’ll all sleep, that’s obvious … you’ll have done all your Christmas shopping already, of course …”  
  
“Of course,” Ginny lied, feeling rather faint. Reeling off the list seemed to be calming Mum down, but her head was starting to spin. _Stop it_ , she told herself sternly. _You’re perfectly capable, remember? It’s just_ Christmas _._ _  
_ _  
_ She heard movement in the hall, and went out to find Harry kicking his boots off.   
  
“Your dad’s still talking to Bill,” he said, looking up and spotting Ginny. “Everything OK here?”   
  
“Er … kind of. Listen …”   
  
She drew him into the small cloakroom, which held a frankly baffling quantity of wellies and coats for a family of five, and filled him in on what she’d just agreed to.   
  
“- so if everyone wants to, that’s all the family - staying here. I know it’s -”   
  
“Brilliant!” said Harry.   
  
Ginny stared. “Did you hear me?”   
  
“Yeah! All the family round here - it’ll be great.” He had a slightly faraway look in his eyes, and Ginny suddenly clicked. Harry, of course, was never going to be anything less than joyful to have a house full of family.   
  
“Yes, but it’s going to be quite a lot of work,” said Ginny gently. “Feeding everyone …”   
  
“I’ll do all the cooking -”   
  
“And I don’t know where they’ll all sleep …”   
  
Harry looked distant again, but this time he snapped his fingers after a moment or two. “Sleeping bags,” he said. “Remember when Sirius broke into the castle? We all had to sleep in the Great Hall - Dumbledore conjured sleeping bags for us. They were purple,” he added, reminiscently.   
  
Ginny did remember. She also remembered being distinctly grateful that she’d had her own room growing up, because as it turned out, some boys broke wind freely and enthusiastically in their sleep. The entertainment provided by Percy furiously attempting to shush them had not been enough to make up for the smell, or the sound for that matter.   
  
“Are you suggesting we all sleep in the same room? _All_ of us?”   
  
“No!” said Harry, grinning a bit too manically. “The kids though, can’t they? We push back all the furniture in the den …”   
  
“That still leaves - eleven, eleven adults to squeeze in,” Ginny pointed out. “Not including us. Well, we could get a hotel - remember the honeymoon, we could try that thing with the bathtub again -”   
  
Harry gave her a look, eyes glinting, the one that said _not here, naughty ... but later, definitely_. “Stop it. We’re not getting a hotel, we can put a double bed in the study, and all the kids’ rooms - that’s eight people …”   
  
“Percy in the shed,” said Ginny, “George and Ron in the attic, Charlie in the downstairs loo, Fleur in the -”   
  
“Yeah, I think I’ll sort the sleeping arrangements.”   
  
Ginny sighed. “I suppose we could tell them our plans, and maybe they’ll all choose to stay at home,” she said hopefully. “Damn. I knew we should have got a house with ten bedrooms.”   
  
“We’d have had to break in all the beds,” said Harry.   
  
“What a terrible chore, I don’t know how we’d have coped at all.” She sighed again, and let her head drop forwards onto Harry’s chest as she exhaled. He gently captured her wrists and tilted her chin up to meet his intense gaze.   
  
“OK?” he asked softly.   
  
“It just feels like a lot,” she admitted, and was ashamed to feel her nose prickle with tears. “But Mum does it all without complaining …”   
  
“Your mum isn’t a top journalist,” Harry reminded her.   
  
“No. I know. I just wanted to do something and make it nice for everyone, and I’m worried it’ll be a disaster -”   
  
“Ginny, dear? I was wondering about dinner -” Mum called, and they hastily stepped back into the hall as she put her head around the kitchen door - but the rest of her sentence was lost in a crash from above, followed by shouts; then Al came skidding towards them, slipping on the floor in his socks.   
  
“Muuum! Richard was climbing the tree and Lily tried to get him down and then _she_ somehow ended up on top of the tree -”   
  
“I always knew she was a star,” Ginny remarked fondly. Harry snorted.   
  
“Come on then - let’s get her down,” he said to Al, who led him away, Harry pulling a face at Ginny over his shoulder.   
  
Mum didn’t look fazed at all. Having raised Fred and George, she had seen it all. “The twins once climbed the big Muggle tree in the village market place, you know,” she said, apparently reading Ginny’s mind. “I only took my eyes off them for a second!”   
  
There was another loud, echoing crash - and then a stretch of quiet that was somehow more alarming.   
  
“Richard is an unusual name for a cat, isn’t it?” Mum said into the silence.   
  
“Yeah, well, he’s called that because he’s -”   
  
“- A LITTLE PRICK!”   
  
Ginny pushed past her mother to the foot of the stairs. “JAMES! WHAT DID YOU SAY?”   
  
“He stabbed me with a fork!” Al cried, reappearing, swiftly followed by a red-faced James.   
  
“NO I DIDN’T! IT WAS JUST A PRICK!”   
  
“Stop saying that!” Ginny ordered. “Why have you got a fork upstairs? _Accio!”_   
  
Confiscated utensil in hand, she stomped back to the kitchen, where her mother was still hovering in the door.   
  
“Sorry, Mum, what were you saying?”   
  
“I thought I could do dinner tonight,” Mum said carefully. “As a thank you for putting us up.”   
  
Upstairs, somebody screamed.   
  
“Yeah,” said Ginny wearily. “Yeah, that’d be good, Mum.”


End file.
